Page 89 of Leaving the Station

It took many hours and a hundred failed letters to get that much onto the page. In earlier drafts I tried to explain to him the complexities of my gender, of how having sex with him wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’tright.But this was what I’d landed on.

I folded the paper in thirds with the key inside and wrote Alden’s name on the front, then snuck through campus under the cover of darkness for the second time that night.

I didn’t technically have access to his building, so I waited a few minutes for someone to come out, then I slipped inside. I ran up the same staircase that we had climbed just hours before. That must’ve been a different century or a parallel universe.

When I got to Alden’s floor, I held my breath and walked slowly to his room. I pressed my ear against the door. I didn’t want him to wake up while I was there; I couldn’t handle seeing his face.

After a minute of listening, once I was sure he was sleeping or else not there, I slid the note under the door and bolted. I didn’t tread lightly like I had coming up to his room. I ran like I was being chased by a horror-movie villain. The stakes felt higher than that.

I locked myself in my dorm then to wait for the shuttle that would take me down to the city, and turned off my phone.

If Alden tried to contact me, I didn’t want to know.

Thursday, 1:30 a.m., Somewhere in ID

Alden has texted me a grand total of thirteen times during this trip, which feels like an omen.

I’m counting them now, forcing myself to read each text, totake in the words he wrote, even though it feels impossible.

This is why I’ve had my phone on airplane mode: I couldn’t face Alden, the boy who was falling for me.

The messages began innocuously enough. The first:We should talk.Then they became more frantic.Are you okay? Where are you? Why aren’t you answering?

Then, finally,What the hell, Zoe?

With these texts, I have to face what I’ve been running away from this entire trip, which is that, to him, we’re not officially broken up. I never said anything to his face. I never even said it explicitly in the letter.

I just told him that I was a lesbian, or close enough to it that I wasn’t into dating him. He has to know what that means, but still, I didn’t have the common decencyto have a conversation.

I just left.

And that’s what Oakley’s about to do to me. And I’m going to let her, because it’s not worth it. I began to care for someone who can never return that care. I am to Oakley what Alden was to me.

Maybe this is my curse, that every time I escape a bad situation, it’ll come back to haunt me in a new way, like a ghost wearing a hat and a paste-on mustache in a poor attempt at a disguise.

“Zoe?”

It’s Virginia, reading a thick paperback and wearing glasses that have a pink beaded chain attached to them.

I wave but don’t say anything.

The remnants of the party are everywhere: decorations and streamers and plates and rogue slices of pie. But the partygoershave left, or are passed out on the floor. Virginia and I are the only conscious people in the observation car.

“Are you okay, dear?” she asks.

I shrug, but tears come to my eyes. Virginia stands from her seat to move closer to mine. She closes her book and lets her glasses hang around her neck by the chain.

“You and Oakley looked quite close at the party,” she says carefully.

“We weren’t,” I tell her petulantly. “We’re not. I mean, we never were.”

She tuts at that. “I’m sure that’s not true. The way you two were acting in the dining car... you were peas in a pod; I’ll tell you that much.”

“We got into a fight.”

She nods thoughtfully. “Well, that explains the moping.”

“But it’s not a fight we can recover from,” I say, comforted by Virginia’s presence. “It’s never going to work out.”